Legion: Peter Chattaway Speaks

SDG

Regular readers know that one of the critical voices I cite most often is my friend Peter T. Chattaway. For a ripping example of why Peter is so quotable, check out his brilliant blog post on Legion, now in theaters.

Some excerpts:

What a mess this movie is. When I first heard the premise two years ago, it raised certain questions for me … and I was curious to see how the movie would answer them. Well, in a nutshell, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even raise them …

How can anyone make a movie about a rebel angel — in this case, Michael, who turns against God and his fellow angels to protect humanity after God decides to wipe us out — and not bother to make even a passing reference to Lucifer?

Where the heck is the “legion” referred to in the movie’s title? We only get a good look at two of the angels: Michael and Gabriel …

The director has reportedly said that this film acts as though the New Testament never happened. But if that’s the case, why do the characters use words like “Christ” as a curse-word? How did that word get into their language? (It’s kind of like how The Invention of Lying depicts a world in which no one has ever believed in God or religion, but they still say they live in the “21st century” or whatever even though they have presumably never believed in Christ, without whom we wouldn’t have a division between B.C. and A.D. in the first place.)

The post is worth reading in full for Peter’s typically insightful observations on the iconic significance of color in a scene with a quasi-Marian figure and some startling parallels with other films now in theaters, among other things.